Keith Muntuwenkosi "Musa" Zondi (born 19 February 1960) is a South African politician who served as Deputy

Minister of Public Works This list indicates government departments in various countries dedicated to public works or infrastructure. See also * Public works * Ministry or Board of Public Works, the imperial Chinese ministry overseeing public projects from the Tang ...

from 2001 to 2004. He represented the

Inkatha Freedom Party The Inkatha Freedom Party ( zu, IQembu leNkatha yeNkululeko, IFP) is a right-wing political party in South Africa. The party has been led by Velenkosini Hlabisa since the party's 2019 National General Conference. Mangosuthu Buthelezi founded t ...

(IFP) in the

National Council of Provinces The National Council of Provinces (NCOP) is the upper house of the Parliament of South Africa under the (post-apartheid) constitution which came into full effect in 1997. It replaced the former Senate, but is very similar to that body, and to ma ...

from 1994 to 1999 and in the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...

from 1999 to 2012. He served as the party's secretary-general and was widely touted as a possible successor to IFP president

Mangosuthu Buthelezi Prince Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi (born 27 August 1928) is a South African politician and Zulu traditional leader who is currently a Member of Parliament and the traditional prime minister to the Zulu royal family. He was Chief Minister of the ...

before he resigned from his party office and legislative seat in February 2012.

Early life and career

Zondi was born on 19 February 1960 in Nkandla in the former

Natal province The Province of Natal (), commonly called Natal, was a province of South Africa from May 1910 until May 1994. Its capital was Pietermaritzburg. During this period rural areas inhabited by the black African population of Natal were organized into ...

. He joined the Inkatha Youth Brigade in 1976 and also served as vice-chairman of the Students Christian Movement at Dlangezwa High School. His attempt to complete a bachelor's degree at the

University of Fort Hare The University of Fort Hare is a public university in Alice, Eastern Cape, South Africa. It was a key institution of higher education for Africans from 1916 to 1959 when it offered a Western-style academic education to students from across sub ...

was disturbed by student boycotts, and the

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

government denied him permission to study at

Wits University The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( or ). The university ...

, a campus designated for whites. Instead, Zondi worked until 1984 in the government of the KwaZulu bantustan. He worked at Khulani Holdings, a private company, from 1984 to 1987, when he left to help establish the non-profit Foundation for Leadership Development. He was also elected national chairman of the Inkatha Youth Brigade in 1984.

Political career

In South Africa's first post-apartheid elections in 1994, Zondi was elected to represent Inkatha (by then restyled as the IFP) in the

KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN and known as "the garden province") is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu) and Natal Province were merged. It is locate ...

caucus of the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

(later the

). In the next general election in 1999, he was elected to the

on the party list for the

constituency. He also served as the IFP's national spokesperson. In January 2001, President

Thabo Mbeki Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki KStJ (; born 18 June 1942) is a South African politician who was the second president of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008, when he resigned at the request of his party, the African National Congress (ANC ...

appointed him to deputise Minister

Stella Sigcau Princess Stella Sigcau (4 or 14 January 1937 in Lusikisiki – 7 May 2006 in Durban) was a Minister in the South African Government. Sigcau was also the first female Prime Minister of the bantustan of Transkei before being deposed in a milit ...

as Deputy

; he replaced Buyisiwe Nzimande. Following Zondi's re-election in

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

, President Mbeki invited him to stay on as Deputy Minister, but Zondi and Vincent Ngema, who had also been offered a deputy ministerial position, said that they could not accept the offer until Mbeki's party, the

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a Social democracy, social-democratic political party in Republic of South Africa, South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when ...

, had reached a comprehensive agreement with the IFP about the nature of their partnership. After receiving this response, Mbeki said that he would simply appoint two other deputy ministers who were willing to accept the job immediately. Zondi continued as an ordinary

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

and was re-elected to his seat in

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

. Simultaneously, he served as secretary-general of the party and was considered a frontrunner to succeed

as IFP president; while the party's dissident factions generally preferred Zanele Magwaza-Msibi, Zondi had the support of some of the conservative core that had formerly supported Buthelezi. However, Buthelezi proved reluctant to retire, and the party's leadership elections were delayed indefinitely. In December 2011, Zondi announced that he would not stand for re-election as secretary-general and would instead seek to spend more time with his family. His announcement followed rumours that he was having an affair with a married IFP colleague; he said that his IFP rivals had been conducting a

smear campaign A smear campaign, also referred to as a smear tactic or simply a smear, is an effort to damage or call into question someone's reputation, by propounding negative propaganda. It makes use of discrediting tactics. It can be applied to individual ...

against him and had even plotted to kill him to remove him from the succession race. In February 2012, Zondi announced his immediate retirement from frontline politics, resigning from the IFP secretary-general's office and from his legislative seat.

Personal life

He is married to Tembile, with whom he has two children. He is a member of the

Lutheran Church Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

and chairs KwaZulu-Natal's Diakonia Council of Churches, in which capacity he has publicly spoken against

xenophobia Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...

References

External links

*
"Why I'm stepping down – Musa Zondi"
at Politicsweb Living people 1960 births People from Nkandla Local Municipality Politicians from KwaZulu-Natal Members of the National Council of Provinces Members of the Senate of South Africa Members of the National Assembly of South Africa 20th-century South African politicians 21st-century South African politicians {{DEFAULTSORT:Zondi, Musa Inkatha Freedom Party politicians